I find this thing to be tragically reminiscent of a cheap and tasteless Dollarama version of the ‘arts and crafts’ aesthetic. To me its just incredibly cheap and awkward looking, especially in person.

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The larger point here is: I really hope that developers don’t start going ‘all jazzy’ with the spandrel.

With this building, as with 300 Front St West, and the YMCA Elm Centre around the corner, we are starting to see designers trying to be creative and colorful with a cut-rate looking material that doesn’t lend itself to colour or creativity.

What they will learn—hopefully sooner rather than later—is that it is impossible to use colour in an effective and interesting way when you are committed to using this particular cheap window wall and spandrel system.

The little bitty boxes of colour surrounded by heavy black, silver, white, or beige mullions is anathema to the elegance, beauty, mood and movement that colour can produce in a building. The only way to use this kind of heavy frame properly is through the principles of harmony and proportion--but that's way over the head of the modest talents who are responsible for these buildings.

Colour is already one of the harder things to handle, even for the best architects. The last thing we need are in-house design-build guys or middling journeymen trying their hand at creating "exciting buildings" through the use of colour.

Give me one of the all-grey aA boxes over this dreck any day…

(there are obvious exceptions. the Sick Kids Research building is one, for obvious curtain walled reasons. X uses its limited colours well. even Paintbox on Dundas East works, in its way...)
 
I'm a bit lost here as to where the comments about colour are coming from? I dont see any colour on this building other than the typical blue and a few shades of gray... I think the "yellow" bits we see are simply wooden safety barriers where glass or doors have yet to be installed, right?
 
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^Precisely.
The yellow is temporary. You can tell from up close that the final product will be black grey and white.
 
there's a lot more than that going on. they are using two shades of blue, at least two shades of grey, as well as white and black, all thrown together in a completely bitty and random way.

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To push back a bit, though, perhaps the aesthetic value of the building lies in its randomness. There's no inviolable aesthetic standard. So the question isn't what standard is or isn't at work.

The real issue is whether randomness on one occasion or another can be defended as aesthetically good or bad. On this occasion, I don't think it's bad--yet. Though I very well might be making that judgment against a background of assumptions that are entirely different than your own. Hence the debate rages on.

But at least the building inspires debate, instead of inspiring only unanimous disapproval. Perhaps that's all we can rightfully expect (while hoping for more).
 
thedeepend said:
there's a lot more than that going on. they are using two shades of blue, at least two shades of grey, as well as white and black, all thrown together in a completely bitty and random way.
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There's a green & a sort of turquoise too.
 
Agreed that Woodsworth is the city's standout example of spandrel use; the spandrel absolutely improves that building, and that's not something that can be said often or with confidence. It's quite a zen treatment, with the vertically stressed section evoking a flattened Escher print for me.

Motion's spandrel with its more contrasting mullion caps and random pattern works for me though too. There's a different intention here; as they've named the building Motion they've tried to embody that with a busy cladding treatment. There's a desire for some razz-a-ma-tazz here; they're a block from Yonge Dundas Square and they're responding to the energy there, and in fact right out the front door. As a rental building I wouldn't expect mullion-free curtain wall anyway.

Would I want the entire skyline populated by similar buildings? No. Would I want the entire skyline populated by "all-grey aA boxes"? No. This city is plenty big enough for a sweeping variety of architectural expression.

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thedeepend said:
there's a lot more than that going on. they are using two shades of blue, at least two shades of grey, as well as white and black, all thrown together in a completely bitty and random way.

d8777c3f.png
Click to expand...

Though, as pointed out earlier, the effect of using a subdued, and related, colour palette breaks down the expected distinction between brickwork, window, and other cladding and creates an "entity" that's distinctive - and which holds together as a design rather than flying apart.
 
thedeepend said:
With this building, as with 300 Front St West, and the YMCA Elm Centre around the corner, we are starting to see designers trying to be creative and colorful with a cut-rate looking material that doesn’t lend itself to colour or creativity.

What they will learn—hopefully sooner rather than later—is that it is impossible to use colour in an effective and interesting way when you are committed to using this particular cheap window wall and spandrel system.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I don't believe that any material should be placed off limits as a vehicle for imaginative expression. It worked with concrete - which can be coloured any which way - and it can work with just about any cladding material. The only thing that matters is how creatively - how well - something is done.
 
Urban Shocker said:
I disagree. I don't believe that any material should be placed off limits as a vehicle for imaginative expression. It worked with concrete - which can be coloured any which way - and it can work with just about any cladding material. The only thing that matters is how creatively - how well - something is done.
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Agreed. And realistically, if it's truly as "cheap" as thedeepend suggests, then it's crying out for more architects to show us how to do it well.
 
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